Kazumichi Komatsu

2025 Stock. Emboss Star marks the inaugural release under Kazumichi Komatsu's own name, following his prolific output as Madegg. The Kochi-born, Kyoto-based artist has distilled four years of preparation into this collection, arranging each element like pieces on a chess board - every placement strategic, every relationship considered.

Komatsu's practice extends beyond traditional musical boundaries, encompassing installation works, video pieces, and live appearances across diverse contexts. This interdisciplinary foundation informs Emboss Star's fundamental investigation: the materiality of sound itself and its relationship to playback processes. Here, the grain of rough recordings becomes texture, the jump and skip of needles become rhythm, the backwards gargle of rewind becomes melody.

The album's structure mirrors the abrupt transitions of everyday existence - individual segments shift suddenly, without warning or preparation. Through this compositional approach, Komatsu attempts to reconfigure our relationship to sonic information, challenging the automatic associations sound typically evokes. The work invites reconsideration of how we exchange meaning through audio, how perception itself might be altered through careful manipulation of expectation.

Emboss Star cultivates states of subconscious reverie while maintaining an element of resistance. Like dreams that promise tranquility yet inevitably face disturbance, these compositions balance serenity with disruption. Komatsu navigates contemporary technological ennui, recognizing the compression of creativity into reductive communication while simultaneously discovering spaces for beauty, folklore, and imaginative possibility within these constraints.